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Every successful person is busy struggling to manage countless
competing priorities in all aspects of professional and personal
life. Staff meetings, pitch meetings, vendor meetings, customer
meeting. Then there’s the actual day-to-day work and even (gasp)
a personal life. A perpetually packed calendar just comes with
the territory. But for up-and-coming entrepreneurs, those at the
higher level with said packed calendars are a treasure trove of
knowledge and experience -- and maybe even a deal or two.

But here’s the thing: busy, experienced entrepreneurs, for the
most part, aren’t too keen on speculative meetings. Speculation
takes time and time is money. Nine times out of 10, speculative
meetings do not yield any ROI, especially in the short-term. So
working with the assumption that a busy person (aka, “the
target”) isn’t going to take a speculative meeting, the upstart
entrepreneur needs to do something remarkable: they need to make
the meeting request impossible to decline. They need to identify
the target’s favorite spot.

Every person has a favorite spot. Some even have a few, depending
on the occasion. What do I mean by favorite spot? Here’s a
personal example. Arcweb HQ is in the heart of the N3RD Street Community in Old City
Philadelphia. A few doors down from us is High Street on Market. It’s my spot for
caffeinated beverages or a good breakfast, and it’s a block
away from my office. Since it’s my favorite spot, I’m usually
going there fairly often anyway.

There’s the window of opportunity that can help the upstart
entrepreneur make his or her pitch nearly impossible to decline.

The digital content we generate gives tremendous insight into
what we like, what we do, where we go. Obviously, the companies
that provide these services know that. This data is also useful
for those in search of information that can help them make a
meeting pitch impossible to say no to.

Let’s say an up-and-coming entrepreneur in Philadelphia wants to
meet with me, cold. First, they should see if there’s a LinkedIn
commonality that could facilitate an introduction. That option
notwithstanding, they should scour the web and public social
media profiles. It’s not hard to find out what I’m involved with
and where I hang out: FinTech, Philly Startup Leaders, Mobile
Monday, etc. It’s also easy to find out my routines. It’s even
easier to find my email address. From there, it’s all about
creating context for the meeting, speaking the same language and
getting straight to the point. Here’s an example:

Chris - I wanted to quickly reach out to you and say hello.
I’m relatively new to Philadelphia and am working on a product in
the mobile payments space. As such, I thought you’d be a good guy
to get to know. If you’re game, happy to buy you a coffee. High
Street on Market? 8AM? You pick the date and we’ll make it
happen. Here’s me on LinkedIn, for reference. Talk soon,
Steve

Unless there’s some glaring reason why I wouldn’t take this
meeting, I’m taking it. There’s virtually no downside, it’s only
30 minutes, and it’s at my favorite spot. At the very least, it’s
a free drink.

But even if Steve here couldn’t peg High Street on Market as a
favorite spot of mine, he knows where I work, and can just
suggest one of the good coffee spots in the immediate vicinity of
Arcweb HQ. Because even if he picked, say, Old City Coffee (which
is also right around the corner) or Starbucks (a block north),
it’s a gesture that shows he is trying to make it convenient for
me. This creates context and familiarity which means Steve has
already started off on the right foot.